Latest / The Knife: A True Crime Podcast / Queen of the Con: Johnathan Walton’s Story

Transcript

Queen of the Con: Johnathan Walton’s Story · The Knife: A True Crime Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: This story contains adult content and language. Listener discretion is advised.
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: The con artist's job is to get you to love
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: them or love the thing they're creating, because once you're
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: making decisions on that love, you're not thinking straight. You're
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: going to get.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Con Welcome to the Knife. I'm Patia Eton, I'm Hannah Smith.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: So we had a conversation this week that was so
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: compelling we decided to release it without as much editing
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: as we normally do. It's with Jonathan Walton, who talks
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: about con artists in a way that you might not
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: have heard before. I certainly hadn't. His perspective is personal.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: He was conned by someone he considered to be a
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: best friend, practically family. You may know Jonathan's story from
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: his podcast Queen of the Con. In his interview with us,
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: he shares both his own experience and the stories of
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: other con artists that he's now investigated for context. In
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: twenty thirteen, Jonathan met a woman in his apartment complex
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: who introduced herself as Mayor Smith. Their building had just
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: lost access to its beloved pool, and when Jonathan organized
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: his neighbors to fight the decision, Mayor claimed she could
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: help after all, she was dating a powerful la mayor.
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: She soon became inseparable from both Jonathan and his husband.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: She weaved herself into their lives for four years before
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: ever asking for money, and by the time she revealed
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  Speaker 1: her true nature, her lives were so elaborate and their
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: bond was so strong that it was really hard for
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: Jonathan to see the truth at first, But once he did,
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: he fought back. His case has made international headlines and
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: ultimately inspired his book, which we talk about in this episode,
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: Anatomy of a con Artist. One note toward the end
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: of this interview is Jonathan quotes someone using a derogatory
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: term for gay people. We chose to leave it in
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: because it was integral to his story, but we wanted
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: to flag that for listeners. Let's get into the interview. Jonathan,
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Knife Podcast. We're so happy to have you.
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much for inviting me on. I'm excited
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: to talk to you both.
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we're so happy about it. So we've been lucky
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: to get copies of your book, Anatomy of a con Artist,
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: and we can't say enough good things about it. We're
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: going to talk about this book. You wrote it a
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: lot of it is how you were personally conned and
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: sort of the wealth of knowledge that you've accumulated since
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: that time. You also weave in stories of other con artists,
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: and I really love the way you structure the book.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: You begin by outlining fourteen red flags that are common
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: with con artists, and then you use those, you weave
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: them throughout the book, and you give readers like concrete
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: examples of how those red flags play out. And we're
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: going to talk more about those red flags because I
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: love that you do that. It's so clear and concise.
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: The backbone of the book is your personal story about
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: being conned, and we want to talk about that as well.
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: But before we get into any of this, we just
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: have to say Patie and I are aligned on this,
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: Like your perspective on con artists and victims is so
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: refreshing to us because it's so in line with what
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: we've been always been saying on our podcast as well,
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: that anyone can be conned, and what we've encountered over
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: the years speaking with victims of scams is that there
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: is this shame factor where they feel really bad about
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: the fact that this has happened to them and you
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: talk about that in the book, so I'm hoping that
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: we can just start off with you sort of addressing
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: that and talking about your perspective on that.
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: Well, thank you. It pleases me to no end that
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  Speaker 2: you guys get what I'm trying to put in the
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: book and you understand what I'm about. Yeah, the structure
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: was tricky. It was a lot of back and forth
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: with my editor, you know, because we're trying to make
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: it as compelling and as intro as possible and also
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: make it like a handbook for people. And you're right,
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: a lot of people think they can never get conn.
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: I used to think that too, you know, and that'll
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: set you up to get con because what people don't
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: realize is my con artist, the Irish Heiress aka Mayor
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  Speaker 2: Smith aka she had twenty other aliases. She was not
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  Speaker 2: an anomaly. There are thousands, if not millions of hers
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: in male form and female form running around and the
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  Speaker 2: majority of victims, I would say upwards of ninety percent
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  Speaker 2: they never report what happened because of the shame, but
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: also because of a red flag I write about in
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  Speaker 2: the book. It is red flag number thirteen TMI too
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: much information because you meet this new person in your life,
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  Speaker 2: new boyfriend, new girlfriend, a new coworker, a new neighbor
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  Speaker 2: in my case, and they get close to you real quick.
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  Speaker 2: Con Artists don't outsmart you. Con Artists outfeel you. They
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  Speaker 2: figure out what your buttons are and they use your emotions.
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  Speaker 2: So a con artist starts revealing their deep dark secrets,
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  Speaker 2: and that does two things. Number one, it makes you think, wow,
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  Speaker 2: this person must really trust me. This person must think
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  Speaker 2: so highly of me to take me in their confidence
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  Speaker 2: and reveal all their secrets. And number two, you think
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  Speaker 2: I can reveal my secrets because you know I we're
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: human beings. Someone waves, You're gonna wave. Someone says, hi,
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: how are you? You're gonna say it good? How are you?
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  Speaker 2: We have cues, we automatically respond to. Someone starts over
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  Speaker 2: sharing TMI. You start doing the same thing. But here's
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  Speaker 2: the trick. Con artists are making up their deep dark secrets.
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: They're not real, they're just fantastical stories. But your deep
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: dark secrets are real. That is a very powerful way
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: to keep victims quiet. You know. Con artists learn about
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: their deep dark secrets. Do this trick in my case,
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: and I want to punch myself in the face when
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: I say this out loud. I was helping an Irish
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: heiress get her inheritance. You know, she sucked me in.
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: And the way she did it looking back was, you know, evil,
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  Speaker 2: maniacal and brill She was a new neighbor, moved into
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: my building. We had a huge problem in our building
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: with our swimming pool. It got taken away because of
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: a legal fight with another building. And it was a
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: really nice pool. It's like twenty swimming pools in one.
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: It's like part of the amenities the reason we moved
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: into this building. And she immediately enters my life offering
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: to help. That is red flag number one. Most con
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: artists get into the victims' lives offering to help. Who
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  Speaker 2: doesn't like a helper exactly, because when someone's helping you,
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  Speaker 2: you immediately like or love them, you know, and then
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  Speaker 2: they wave a lot of red flag number two, which
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  Speaker 2: my con artist did too kind, too quick. She's whining
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: and dining my husband and me at fancy restaurants. She's
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: taken us on vacations to Palm Springs. She seems like
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  Speaker 2: she has all this money. You know.
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I want to slow down a little bit because
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: you're getting into the details that I think are so
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: helpful on One of the things I loved about your
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: book and also the podcast is that you take us
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: through those steps. Because when you just started and you said,
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: you know, I was trying to help an Irish heiress
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: get her into Maiton's back. If that's all you know,
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: I think most people will be like, eye roll, what
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  Speaker 1: are we talking about here?
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
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  Speaker 1: Right, But the thing is is you really walk us
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: through how you got to this point four years later
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: where it was like so believable, and I think that
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: that's so important to understand. And so you mentioned like, okay,
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: she came into your life to help with the swimming
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  Speaker 1: pool issue, which was a legal issue. Suddenly you're building
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  Speaker 1: no one could use this beautiful, amazing swimming pool which
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: everyone loved using. And she comes sweeps in and says,
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  Speaker 1: I'd love to help talk to us a little bit
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: about like what that feeling is of that meeting whenever
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  Speaker 1: you have that neighborhood meeting in your apartment and you
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  Speaker 1: watch her, you're watching her like work the room. Tell
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  Speaker 1: us a little bit about that moment and how that
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  Speaker 1: felt to you.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, I have a you know, conflicting perspectives now,
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  Speaker 2: because I remember what I thought when it was happening,
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  Speaker 2: and now, looking back, I know what the truth was.
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  Speaker 2: While it's happening, she appears to be this guardian angel,
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: this savior. She's dating a married politician. He was the
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  Speaker 2: mayor of an affluent city here in Los Angeles. He
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  Speaker 2: sued our building before. She says, you know, she says,
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  Speaker 2: but none of that was true, but we don't know that.
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  Speaker 2: So she kind of captures the room and they're thirty
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  Speaker 2: or forty residents gathered in my living room. And again
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: this hurts me to admit, you know, I took it
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: upon myself when we lost the pool. I posted flyers
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  Speaker 2: everywhere I went and distributed them to four hundred and
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  Speaker 2: forty four units in our apartment building. I took it
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  Speaker 2: upon myself. That's who I am. That's who I've always been,
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  Speaker 2: you know. And now I can only imagine when she
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: saw that flyer in our lobby, she must have been
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: licking her chops, thinking to herself, Ah, this guy's a
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  Speaker 2: do gooder. I'm going to get him to do good
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  Speaker 2: for me. Because that's exactly what she went about doing.
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  Speaker 2: I didn't realize, and none of us do as victims
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  Speaker 2: or all of us are partial victims. I guarantee you
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: we are all potential victims. These people are everywhere. No
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: one's talking about them, but you know, no one is me,
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  Speaker 2: and I'll tell you why. But looking back, that's all
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  Speaker 2: the information she needed about me to know how to
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  Speaker 2: get into my life. And she did so. That evening,
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  Speaker 2: we have this meeting in the living room, that in
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  Speaker 2: my living room that I organized. You know, my husband
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  Speaker 2: and I but I organized. I give him credit, but no,
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  Speaker 2: he was just saying, okay, let's do it. And at
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  Speaker 2: the end of the meeting, she says, I want to
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  Speaker 2: take you and your husband out for dinner to thank
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  Speaker 2: you for organizing all this. It's amazing. And she took
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: us to this expensive restaurant that it was like six
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: seven hundred dollars and I tried to pay our share
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: and she wouldn't let me. No, no, no, And she
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: starts unpacking her story. She's very wealthy. She moved here
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: from Ireland. She had a weird accent, so everything gelled.
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: When we had dinner at her place one night, she
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  Speaker 2: showed us this framed Irish Constitution on her wall. She
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: had props and she said that one of the signatories
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: something something Clark was one of her great great grands father,
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: the founder of Ireland. You know. She started confiding, like,
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: you know, I'm Irish Royalty. Whatever you do, don't tell
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: the Irish embassy I'm here. They would be so upset
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: that no one alerted them to my presence. Please. So
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: we're like, oh no, no, we're not going to tell anyone.
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: You know, she asks us to do something. You know.
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: So none of that was true, but it made me
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: feel and again I want to punch myself in the face.
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: It made me feel special that this woman, this wealthy
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: Irish heiress royalty from Ireland, is trusting me and inviting
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: me to her home and I'm a part of Irish history.
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: Now it's like stupid, stupid, stupid, But that's how I
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: felt at the time.
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: And that's such a universal desire, is like this human
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: connection and to be made to feel like important or
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: seen or trusted, trusted, and for her to have taken
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: you guys to this like lavish dinner that costs six
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: seven hundred dollars, Like that is wealth to be able
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: to spend that much much money on a dinner. I
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: mean that I've never like that, you know. I think that,
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: even though in hindsight it's like, oh, how foolish, because
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: of all of these flags that I'm now aware of.
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: It's like, if someone spent that kind of money on
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: me at dinner and I offered to pay my share
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: and they refused, I would have every reason to believe
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: what they were telling me. They're wealthy.
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, she had all the tricks. Little did I
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: know the money she used for that dinner and many
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: dinners was from credit cards she had stolen in other
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: people's names. She'd taken out credit and she was scamming
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: a bunch of other people. So all the money that
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: she was spending on me, on these vacations and dinners
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: and lavish gifts and stuff, looking back now, I realized
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: it's an investment for her, and it worked. I paid
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: off big. While she's whining and dining my husband than me,
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: she has twenty other scams going at the same time.
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  Speaker 2: This is who she is and these people are everywhere.
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: So it's good I point out the red flags, because
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: God knows, she waived every single one of them, and
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  Speaker 2: I had no idea these are a thing. These people
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: are everywhere but no one's talking about it because you know,
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: it had to take It took me. It took me
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: to expose her and stop untold numbers of people from
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: falling forth and even initially, and this is what angers me.
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: So I'm going to try not to shout when it
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: all came crashing down for her and I confronted her
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: and she denied it, and I recorded the confrontation, thinking
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: police are going to want this, not knowing they couldn't
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: give a flying f. She got a lot of people
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: to believe her. She was telling people, and a lot
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: of people believed it that I'm this crazy guy in
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: love in love with her, happily married gay man in
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: love with her, and I'm just spurned. But she didn't
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: feel the same way. And now I'm angry and trying
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: to take my revenge. And a lot of people wouldn't
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: talk to me, they would hang up lock me. It
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: took some convincing, but that's how good she is.
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: Well, it's like for them to believe you and not
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: her would mean them having to accept that they too
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: had been duped. Yes, and many of them probably also
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: been conned out of money or whatever else, And that
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: is such a difficult part of like the web that
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: these con artists weave.
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's human nature. They use our human nature against us.
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: And I'm glad you brought that point up, because I
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: do forget to bring it up when I'm talking about
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: the book. But it's in the book. I've investigated by
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: now in the past eight years, literally hundreds of different
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: con artist cases, and I've talked to hundreds of different victims,
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: and there's a subset of victims like you just described.
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: They cannot come to terms with what happened. So even
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: though they're calling for my help and advice, they tell
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: me things like, well, I knew something was off, but
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: and I'm like, lady, no, you didn't. You gave her
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: twenty thousand dollars if you thought something was off, are
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: you giving her money? Like because of what you just said,
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: they cannot admit to themselves that they fell for it,
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: so that when they tell the story to themselves and
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: to others, well, they knew, Oh I knew something was No,
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: you didn't. I've got condat a close to one hundred
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: grand I didn't think anything was off. I fell for it, hard, firm,
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: like I believed it. Otherwise, why would I part with
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: my money, you know. But so many people are not
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: in a place psychologically where they can accept that, so
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: they create this story that well I knew, I want
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: to align you. It's so weird human nature delusion.
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: It's like too heartbreaking to accept that reality, probably for
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: some people.
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: And I completely get that because I was in the
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: closet for thirty years. The first thirty years of my life,
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: I couldn't accept I was gay, and people are like, well,
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: you always knew, I'm like, no, I was dating women.
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: I had this Disney idea of love, like if I
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: met the right woman, all of this would change. Like
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: I believe that, even though that's a but it protected
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: me because by the time I did accept I was gay,
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: I nearly took my life. I didn't want to live.
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: I came so close. Oh my gosh, Guardian Angel came
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: out of nowhere to saved my life. But I'd planned
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: my suit, I'd planned to leave. I couldn't deal with it. Yeah,
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: and that's why that delusion was created that I just
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: need to keep dating women and meet the right woman,
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: meet the right woman. Well, no one's the right woman
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: because I'm a home all. Yeah, but I couldn't face
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: that until I was thirty, so I don't understand delusion
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: better than most.
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: Wow, that story hits real home for me. Just sidebar,
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: because my ex husband is gay and similar thing, and
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: I think whenever I won't go too deep into this,
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: but like whenever he came out and we got divorced,
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: we're still very good friends. By the way, Oh good
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: people would sort of be like, well, you had to
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: have known, or he had to have known, or some
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: people thought, well, he knew and he was doing something
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: to you, like you know, and I was like, that's
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: just absolutely not the case. Believe me, I lived through this.
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: It's not the case. He loved you. I know he
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: loved you, and I was in love with a woman who,
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: thank God would not have me because I would have
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: wrecked her life because I'm gay. But I guarantee you
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: he loved you, and he was trying to make it
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: work and try to not be what he eventually accepted
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: he was. But it's hard.
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's interesting that you make that parallel because it
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: does show how deep those stories that we tell each
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: other ourselves ye can go into our psyche and really
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: affect what we actually consciously believe. One of the things
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: that that was interesting is you talk about Akham's razor
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: in the book and sort of trying to think about, like,
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: what is the most simple explanation for what could have
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: happened here, right, And you think about that when you're
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: trying to piece together what really had happened and what
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: were the lies and what were the truths. But what's
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: interesting about that is that, like thinking about you being
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: at her house and seeing this like framed antique Irish document,
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: the mind is not going to go to, well, it's
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: more plausible that she, this woman who's my neighbor and
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: seems like normal and charming and wonderful, has been like
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: secretly like ating this document and put it on her wall.
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: It's like, no, Like, the most logical explanation is that
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: this is real and this is from her family exactly. Yeah,
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: And so it's like believable. Yeah, and like just a
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: piggyback off of what Hannah saying is when I was
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: listening to that story for the first time, I was like, yeah,
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: I could see how someone could fall for that, because
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: if I went home and say, told my husband, our
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: neighbor is this Irish heiress who's having trouble getting her inheritance.
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: He's a lawyer, he'd probably be like, what. But I
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: would think if she was trying to con me, she'd
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: come up with something more believable, Yes, more just like
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: common that you hear about. But instead it's this like
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: over the top situation that who would come up with
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: that if they were trying to convince their neighbor in
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: LA to give them money.
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's the paradox of life. On the bigger
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: the lie, the more believable, and you would think the
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: opposite would be true. We're suspecially the little lies. Because
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: someone tells you, oh, I'm from Ireland, You're not going
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: to doubt that, you just well, now I doubt everything
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: all the time. But at the time I would okay, like,
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: who's gonna lie about where they're from? You know, when
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: I met her, she says she has a loopus. Okay,
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: she's in surgical stockings. Come to find out she had
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: just gotten LiPo from a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon who
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: she tried to scam as well, but he doesn't want
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: to go on her record. But she knew that telling
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: me she had lupus A I would believe it, and
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: B that would evoke a lot of sympathy for me.
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: And it did, and it did, and she was limping,
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: but it was LiPo, not Lupas you know, we just
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: believe when we meet new people, we don't suspect their
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: con artists, but if they're waving the flags as she was,
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: Because I have this fantasy now years later that if
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: I met her today, knowing what I know now about
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: con artists and having written this book, would I be
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: able to discern she's a con artist? And the answer
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: is absolutely. Within the first twenty minutes of talking to
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: this woman, she was waving nearly every red flag I
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: ride about. They were all there, but if you don't
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: know what they look like, you're not going to notice.
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: It's like if you're standing in Times Square and there
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: are thousands of people walking by you. You just see
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: like a sea of people. You don't really notice anything.
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: But if I tell you, hey, look for the guy
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: with a bowler hat and glasses, immediately you spot that guy.
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: One hundred fet there he is. That's the bowler hat.
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: That's a different kind of hat, I was told. So
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: the red flags are the same way. Once I point
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: them out, you can spot them immediately. She was waving
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: all of it. The way she really got her hooks
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: into me looking back. And this was the condos for me.
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: Is at the time I had come out at thirty
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: and by the time I met her, I hadn't been
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: home for Christmas in like nearly eight years, because part
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: of my family disowned me. Part of my family said,
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: keep that away from us. We never want to see
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: you again, you know. And as much as I thought
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: that didn't bother me, I mean, of course it bothered me.
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: God up such a we're all in various stages of
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: denial of various times, and then we look back at
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: wait a minute, that was denial. Of course it bothered
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: me like I was hadn't been home for Christmas. So
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: as soon as she finds out that detail of my life,
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: she matches it. She says, well, my family disowned me too,
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: because they're trying to get me disinherited. And she would
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: go on to waive a lot of red flag number
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: six technology. She would sell me the story of her
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: family through digital screens, you know, through her cell phone,
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: through her iPad, through her laptop. I would see texts
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: from her cousins, Finton and the names Finton, Tristan deer
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: Mitt and her uncle Patrich Clark, who dies and when
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: he dies, you know, she is devastated. I find her
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: bent over, crying and I hold her and her tears
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: wet my shirt and I'm rocking her, telling her it's okay,
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: It's going to be okay. But none of that was real.
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: Like her uncle was invented, her family was invented. She
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: was not from Ireland, and yet she's such a brilliant actress.
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: She's crying, and even though I'm a gay guy, I
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: still a woman. Crying has such power over me, like
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: I will do anything to help her, you know. So
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: at that point, we weren't just two friends in La.
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: We were like two discarded souls with our families on
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: the other side of the world who didn't want us.
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: She became like my sister. You know. We would end
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: phone calls I love you, I love you, like she
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: was family. That's how she got in, you know, That's
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: when I started to really care about her, And that's
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: when I was so incensed. God, the family is trying
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: to destroy her. It's wrong, and I'm gonna do good
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: or I'm gonna help her. I'm so angry when I
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: think about it, because she knew all that, Like she
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: knew exactly how to manipulate me with the tears and
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: the you know, the family discarded her and yeah, and
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: it worked, it worked great, It worked great until it didn't.
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: So the short version is I start helping her. Her
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: family makes up these you know, they pay off a
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: dirty distant attorney. And this is around the time one
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: of the former das was like charged with a crime,
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: so like it was newsy, you know, like, oh, like
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: another one. Okay, so I read about this one who's
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: going to jail, and now your family paid off another
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: DA to invent a case on her so they could
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: get her disinherited because there's a clause and then will
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: in her uncle's will that if any heir is convicted
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: of a felony, day four to fifty inheritance. So it
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: made sense to me, and she was standing to inherit
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: close to ten million US dollars the equivalent. The part
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: of the estate was a twenty five million euro estate,
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: and at the time she was going to get like
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: five or seven million, which in American dollars at the
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: time was like close to ten million. So I was
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: a news reporter for ten years. I would see stories
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: all the time about husbands who killed their wives from
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: a million dollars insurance policies. And here we're talking about
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: close to ten million dollars, Like, what wouldn't someone do
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: to get that money. Of course they're going to try
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: to make up charges and get her arrested and get
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: her whatever. So red flog number three drama, drama, drama.
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: The minute all this drama started happening, I rallied to
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: her side to help her, and the family paid off
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: for a DA to freeze her bank account. I started
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: loading her money to live on, you know. And I
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: didn't think anything of it. I was so confident she'd
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: pay me back because another red flag I write about
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: in the book Red Flag number eight be wedding. And
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: I see this again and again. A lot of romance scams,
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: a lot of investment scams. The con artists will give
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: you a little money up front, you know, if it's
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: an investment scam, they'll give you a little return on
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: the investment. In this case, with my con artist, she
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: gets arrested. I bail her out of jail, cost almost
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: five thousand dollars cash and she pays me back the
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: next day. So immediately I felt confident loading her more
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: money down the line. And while you know she's bleeding
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: me dry, I have no doubt she's going to pay
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: me back. I have no doubt this inheritance is coming.
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: I have no doubt everything's going to be fine. I'm
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: helping this woman. I feel justified, and I keep doubling down.
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: Never four seconds I think I was getting scammed until
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: the second I realized I was. Yeah.
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: And also, like you said, you were like family at
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: this point where you felt like family, And I think
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: that puts things in perspective because I think a lot
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: of people would do anything for their like there's someone
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: at least someone in their life where they think, like
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: I would literally do anything for them, you know, because
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: the trust is so deep and the bond is so deep,
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: and she was such a craftswoman at being able to
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: create that with you, And so what did it take
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: for you to start questioning it? Because it just seems
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: like the bond was so strong and she had really
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: like I mean, she was crying like that is just
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: so sick. I know, what did it take for you
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: to finally be like, wait a minute, this might not
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: be what she says.
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: So her last ask for money came when she hired
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: a good lawyer in LA and he was working this
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: case that her family made up against her. And I'm
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: believing everything because she's showing me emails and texts, never
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: for a second that I think she invented created Google
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: accounts to email and text herself to show me, Like,
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: who does that? Yeah, professional con artists do that too,
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: So yeah, that's the red flag of technology. If someone
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: is using technology digital screens to back up what they're saying,
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: be suspicious. That's weird. Regular people don't do that. So
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: I believed. You know that she needed the last fifty
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: thousand dollars to make this case go away, and court
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: costs and lawyer's fees and lawyers are expensive. Like that
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: didn't strike me as odd, So I let her charge
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: my credit cards fifty thousand dollars. Wasn't worrying at all
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: because now she's going to get the inheritance. It's coming,
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: she wins. We had a champagne dinner to celebrate, like
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: good times ahead. And then I go to pick her
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: up for brunch one day and she's crying real tears,
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: so I knew it was real. She tells me the
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: judge is angry at her because he considers her charging
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: my credit cards to pay her lawyer and court thing
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: money laundering. I'm like, money laundering? Is that? What money
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: is it? At that point, I haven't been to court
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: in like twenty something years, and when I was there
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: it was to fight a traffic ticket. Like, I don't
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: know anything about the criminal court system. I'm a TV producer.
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: I don't know. I'm not involved in that world, so
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: I don't know. So I accepted what she said, and
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: she said the judge's going to punish her with thirty
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: days in jail to teach her a lesson. It's not
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: a felony to stop on the risk to teach her
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: lesson thirty days in jail, you know. I'm like, wow, okay,
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: well you'll be out in thirty days and you'll get
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: your inheritance. Yes, everything's great. Yes, So she goes to jail.
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: She calls me collect from jail every day. Two weeks in.
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: I'm like, I'm gonna come see you. She's like, no, no, no,
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: I don't even see me like this. I'm so embarrassed. Well,
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: she's like my sister. Of course I'm going to go
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: see her. So I don't know if you've ever visited
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: anyone in jail, but in La County, you have to
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: log onto the website. You have to create like a
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: Facebook profile. You have to upload your driver's license and
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: create a name and a picture. And then after you
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: do all of that and they approve, you have to
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: click on the inmate you want to visit. And when
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: I clicked on her name, that's when what she was
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: in jail for came up in black and white. It
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: said felony, grand theft.
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: Not money wondering exactly, and.
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: It was a felony. And she assured me it wasn't
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: a felony because if it's a felony, she doesn't get
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: her inheritance. So I would still stupidly believe there's inheritance.
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: At this point, I'm like, oh, no, she's not gonna
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: get inheritance. But I'm like, grand theft, that's not what
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: she told me. What you know, I get like a
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: heat washes over me. At the time, I was producing
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: a show called Booze Traveler for the Travel Channel, and
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: when I find all this out, on my computer screen
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: and that's all it says, felony, grand theft. I don't
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: know what is it. So I printed out and I
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: tell my boss. I'm like, I got to go. I
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: have an emergency. He's like, go. So I go to
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: the courthouse and I go to the clerk and I
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: hand them the paper. I need all the case files
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: on this and they're like all of them. I'm like yeah,
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: And it costs like one hundred dollars because they got
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: to make copies of everything. And it took a while,
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: but I got it. And I sat there in the
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: corner of the courtroom, hands trembling, just reading everything.
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: Just unraveling everything.
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Well everything about this case, right, everything I was
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: reading was brand new to me.
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: So in going over all those court records, I realized
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: she lied about everything. Like she pled guilty to stealing
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: two hundred thousand dollars from the travel agency she worked for,
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: and she scammed the money from me to pay restitution
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: in that case, to convince the judge that she's good
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: for it and she's going to pay the rest back.
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: So that fifty grand she got from me was to
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: pay restitution. And that's why she only got a thirty
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: day sentence. She was looking at five years otherwise.
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: But at the time that you're going through all of
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: these court records, she's still in jail.
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: She's in jail, right, So you're.
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: Like, okay, now I'm understanding that things are not adding
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: up right.
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: And by this point I went home and just collapsed
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: in my husband's arms, crying. I didn't know she was
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: a professional con artist on the running from authorities in
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: the UK, but I did know she lied to me
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: to get this money. Now we're screwed. How could I
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: let this happen? But at the same time, I have
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: this naive belief that I'm going to start gathering evidence
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: police are going to do something. I was the baker
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: and into the woods in college. I can act, so
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: I'm going to act like everything's fine. So when she
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: would call me collect she's still in jail. Oh, yeah,
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: everything's fine. I'm coming to pick you up. So she
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: gets out to her word. You know, in thirty days.
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: Two weeks later, she's out and I pick her up.
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: But I'm recording the whole thing because I think, ooh,
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: I'm going to get a confession. But you know, when
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: I confront her she denies it, and she starts tearing up.
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: But that's not true, Jonathan. I'm like, you've been lying
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: to us the whole time. That's not true. Like that
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: court thing you were paying rest that you that's the true, Jonathan.
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: That's look, I have the records here. She looked away.
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: I'm like, I'm going to go to police. She's like,
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: you do what you need to do. But that's not true,
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: that's you know. And I'm like, well, why are you
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: going to pass back? I'll pay you back, but you know,
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: it's like and then I realized I'm never going to
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: get paid back. You know. In the confrontation, I thought
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: if I threatened to go to the police, she'll pay
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: me back. She said she would. But then at that
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: point I'm like, no, you're not. This is a scam.
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: Like I didn't know there were so many other victims
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: out there. I just knew this, you know, based on
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: your past actions. You were just scamming me the whole time.
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: What did it feel like to be sitting in the
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: car with her, this person who the last time you
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: physically saw her, she was your friend, someone you trusted
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: enough to loan all of this money too. And then
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: to be sitting next to her and seeing someone totally different.
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: I was in a space where I immediately understood murder.
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: I understood it. I wanted to kill her. I wanted
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: to bash her head in a wall. So here's the
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: thing about me. I'm a vegetarian, the let live. I
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: take the spider and release them outside. I get a
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: cup and a piece of paper, like, I don't kill anything.
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: But in the months after realizing what happened, I would
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: have these detailed murder fantasies of me strangling her to
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: death and watching the life drift out of her eyes
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: and enjoying it. Of me throwing her off the top
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: of our building. These are daydreams I'm having and they're
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: bringing me joy. And when I told my best friend
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: Evan about this, the look on his face was like
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: what the He's like, dude, you need help, Like you
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: need to talk to someone, and I'm like, I am
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: talking to someone you like. So but I started looking
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: into getting help because this is not the person I knew.
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: And the frightening thing was I enjoyed it. It brought
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: me relief, you know. So I was going to see
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: a shrink and I start researching and I come to
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: find out this is a normal reaction for victims to
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: fantasize about hurting their perpetrate. It happens to most victims
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: of every kind of crime, attempted, murder, rape, whatever. There's
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: a period victims go through. Mine lasted three or four
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: months where you have routine fantasies of hurting them or
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: killing them, and they eventually went away. I'm not a murderer,
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: but in that moment when I picked her up, I
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: was enraged, enraged. I'm still I'm a human. I'm not
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: going to do anything that I'm going to go to
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: jail for, so I held back. But it's weird we
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: so often judge people, well, how could you do that?
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: How could you? You know, when you're in a position
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: when you get royally fed over and the emotions takeover.
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: I get it. I get how I could have killed
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: her and I would have felt justified in the moment.
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: I would have felt justified. You deserve this, what you
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: did to me. But no murder is wrong. Someone scams,
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: you don't kill them because you want to believe me.
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: I know, I know the feeling.
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: I mean, I appreciate the honesty though, because that's like
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: as you said, what a lot of people go through.
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: And that's like sounds like a very intense thing to
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: feel an experience. And I mean that tape that you
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: have of her, you know, dodging, it's not true, it's
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: not true. No, no, no, it feels so in line with
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: con artists. It feels I mean, I've spoken with a
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: few people jailhouse calls of people who have scammed people,
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: and that feels very similar. Not admitting anything, always trying
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: to say no, I'm the victim. No, it's you're misunderstanding.
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: I don't know if it would have mattered, because she's
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: already done the horrible thing to you. But I imagine
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: that maybe in your you were hoping for a different reaction,
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: Like if she had just been like, oh my gosh,
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: you're so right, so I did do this. I did it,
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: and actually just admitted to what she did. Would that
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: have changed anything for you?
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: I mean, you're very perceptive. Yeah, you hit it on
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: the head. Absolutely, That's what I wanted. I wanted an apology.
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: It frightens me to say this out loud. Had she
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: have apologized and tried to make good or whatever, I
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: would not have gone to police. I wouldn't have. I
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: would have foolishly thought, she'll pay us back and we'll
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: try to work on it whatever, And that would have
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: really deluded my criminal case because the time it takes
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: for you to go to police after something happens, if
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: it's a long the longer that time is they hold
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: it against you. Well, why did you report this? It happened,
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: you know, and there's a statute of limitations. So thank
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: god in the moment, Yeah, I was expecting an apology.
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: I would have loved an apology, an admission of what
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: she did, you know, anyone who's wronged does. But thank
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: god she didn't, because yeah, that gave me the embetist
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: to go to police. Who I go to police and
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: after I explain everything, they tell me, well, there's nothing
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: we can do. It's not a crime. And I'm like, squat, now,
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: well it's not a crime. You gave her the money,
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: And I'm like, really, so it's not a crime. No,
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: it's not a crime. You know, good luck in civil
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: court you can hire a lawyer and sue her, but
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: there's nothing criminal here. Good luck. And as I'm walking away,
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: I'm just staggering, like in a post war haze, like,
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: and I put my hands on the glass door of
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: the LAPD Downtown office. As I'm pushing it open, I
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: call it my guardian Angel. Something welled up and shouted
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: in my brain. No, no, no, no, this cannot be true.
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: No no. And I turn back around and I go
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: back to that cop at the desk, and I'm like,
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: this makes no sense. It's not a crime because I
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: gave her the money. What about Bernie Madoff? They gave
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: him the money, but he's convicted, he's in jail at
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: the time he was in jail, he sits dide, what
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: about the scams? Were they pretend to be from the
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: irs and scam the elderly out of thousands? That's a crime, right, yes?
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: So what about when a guy with a gun holds
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: up for seven to eleven the cashier gives them the money.
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: How is giving the money means it's not a crime.
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: That makes no sense. No no, And I start dumping out
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: all the evidence I have at a satchel, and I'm like,
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: phone records, emails, text messages, bank records, credit cards, like
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: these are lies, she told me, you know. And immediately
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: in that moment, the officer seems pressed and he pauses
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: and looks at me, and he's like, what do you
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: do for a living? And I snap back, I'm a
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: TV producer. He's like, any shows I would have heard of?
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: Oh God, So I pulled out the big one. I'm like, yeah,
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: I did Shark Tank season four, and immediately his eyes
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: light up. He's like Shark Tank and he's like, I've
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: been trying to pitch something to the Sharks for years.
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: This is like the most Los Angeles twist of all time.
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: Yes. Yes, And in that moment, even though I'm violating
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: all the paperwork I signed to work on Shark Tank,
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: in that moment, I'm like, I can help you, help me,
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: I'll help you. He's like, Okay, here's what you got
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: to do. He's like, I'll take a police report, but
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: you got to call about your case every single day.
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: And I'm like, what do you mean. He's like, you know,
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: because I was of the mind you follow police report.
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: It's in their hands. They're gonna handle it. No, that's
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: not how it works, he said. After you leave, by
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: the end of the day, eight five hundred other police
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: reports will be on top of yours in this pile.
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: Every time you call about your case, it gets taken
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: from the bottom and placed on the top, and there's
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: some discussion about you and your case with other officers, like, oh,
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: Jonathan Wallon's calling again. So that was the best advice
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: I could have ever received from anyone. He never called
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: me to help get him on Shark ten.
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: I wonder what his idea was.
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: I don't know, but I would have helped them. Yeah, listen,
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: I'm a man of my word. I would have absolutely
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: helped them, because you know, you scratch my back out,
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: scratch yours. And I called about my case every day,
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: and by the third week it got assigned to a detective.
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: And then I get a call from the detective and
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: I make an appointment to come down and interview with him,
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: and then he calls me. He's like, I can't do
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: the interview because I got reassigned. Now your case is
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: being assigned to an officer who's trying to make detective
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: like I inferred, it's the dunce of the police station.
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: I'm like great, So then I go and talk to
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: the officer use me for hours. I didn't know he's
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: recording it, but he did. And then he calls me
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: days later. It's like I watched your video of the
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: interview with my sergeant and we believe you.
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: You like, there was a video.
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So at that point, I'm like, you know what,
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: I can't. You guys are useless. Like I started my
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: own investigation. I started a blog telling my story, warning people.
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: I didn't know other victims are out there, but I
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: knew she's probably, you know, trying to shake down other people.
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: So I just said, whatever she tells you, don't give
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: her money. You know, this is what she looks like,
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: this is her name, blah blah. And I start getting
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: contacted by tons of other people she scammed, and some
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: with different names. So every time I find a new
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: name she used, she's like Maryann Clark, Marianne Welch, Like
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: I would put it on the blog so it's findable
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: in a search, you know, a keyword. So I start
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: hearing from all these victims. Every time I hear from
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: a victim, I call the office. I'm like, here's another victim,
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: here's ano victim, here's another victim, here's another victim. At
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: one point and god, you know, I feel bad bashing
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: the LAPD. But then I don't feel bad because I
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: live through this. At one point, the sergeant calls me, hey,
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: stop giving out our number. These aren't helping, and I'm like,
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: what do you mean, Like there are other victims of
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: the woman who scamed me, they have nothing to do
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: with your case. Like, tell them to go follow their
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: own police report. So cut to we're a month away
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: from the trial and the DA that's handling the trial
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: asked me, are there any other victims? And I'm like, yeah, tons.
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: He's like, well, why didn't the police investigate them? I'm like,
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: I know. The sergeant said, they have nothing to do
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: with my case.
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: Now that's infuriating, and.
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: The DA took his glasses off and it's like, they
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: have everything to do with your case. I'm like, I know,
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: that's what I said. It's like, but I was just
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: a victim of the system. A guy with the badge
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: is telling you this is how it works. You just
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: accept it. But now I know better, and it's in
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: the book what you got to do. So when police
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: turn you away, which nine out of ten victims who
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: call me for help, it's because police have turned them away.
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: You can't just go show up, boohoo, cry you got scanned.
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: You have to think of as a college speech class
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: presentation you're going to make. You've got to have props.
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: You got to have evidence. You've got to have witness statement,
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: you've got to write up affidavit. You got to have
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: you know, And I say this in the book, Pitching
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: a criminal case to police is like pitching a television
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: show to a network executive. You got to make it
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: sexy and fun and intriguing, and you've got to be
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: the protagonist. And you've got to have a beginning, middle,
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: and end. You got to rehearse it before you go.
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: You got to put on a show for the cop.
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: And then he'll take a report. And I see this
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: again and again in the cases I've worked on. They
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: turn the victim away. I help the victim create a
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: good case. They go back and they take a report.
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: But nobody's telling victims this. I am, but this is
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: not well known. You think you go and tell what happened,
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: they'll take a report. No, if it's a scam, nine
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: out of ten times they tell you go to civil court.
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: And that's not because they don't care. They do care,
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: they're just overwhelmed. They got murders and rapes, and especially
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: in a big city like La they're overwhelmed. So if
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: they can send you to another place that helps them
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: in their job, that's one less thing they have to
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: do there.
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: You know, I love that you focus so much on
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: that in this book and that you like really go
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: through a plan of how you could put something like
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: this together, how you could take it. I mean the
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: amount of people that even Patient I have had email
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: us saying I was scammed? What do I do? I
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: need help? The police? They told me it's a civil matter.
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: And we've talked with people who do take it to
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: civil courts. They win the suit, well they're not getting
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: that restitution, and then that person is still romping around
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: the world scamming other people and they feel so hopeless.
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: And you've had I'm sure so many people reach out
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: to you. You talk about that in the book, like
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: after you have come out public with your story and
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: the podcast, do you have people reaching out to you
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: all the time? And I just love that you get
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: involved and that you've created this resource to help people
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: because it does seem so difficult. And also, you know,
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: people are at varying degrees of heartbroken and financially broken
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: when they're having to take these steps. Was that one
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: of the reasons you wrote the book, or what was
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: the impetus of creating this sort of handbook for people.
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: That's another great question. Yeah, so I had never planned
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: to write a book. I'm not an author. I'm a
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: TV producer. So my story goes public. My con artist
• 42:19
  Speaker 2: gets convicted. You know, there's a trial and she's convicted,
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: and it was such a healing experience for me watching
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: all that go down, being a part of that testifying
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: against her. As she sat there in court wondering, I'm
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: wondering to myself, I'm looking. I didn't want to eyeball
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: the jury to make them uncomfortable, but in my peripheral
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: I'm looking. All right, it's mostly young men, young women,
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: a couple of older people. Okay, are they believing me?
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: Because she never testified, and looking back, her lawyer brought
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: up a lot of reasonable doubt. It brilliantly hats off,
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: you know, he really defended her. Well, he said, ladies
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: and gentlemen of the jury, John the wall, And there's
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: a TV producer. I am a TV producer. That's true.
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: You notice the camera in the courtroom. The camera is
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: recording everything. Because Jonathan got permission Jonathan's recording everything. That's true.
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: I applied to get a camera in the courtroom. Thank
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: god the judge allowed at fifty to fifty. Sometimes I do,
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: sometimes you don't. Thank god they did. Because Jonathan's making
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: a documentary. Jonathan's making a movie. That's true. I am,
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: so those three things are true. Here's the lie. Well,
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: Jonathan's making up all this stuff because he wants a
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: good movie. He's in Hollywood and he wants a good movie.
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: And I'm like, that's not true. I'm not making up anything.
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: But if you're a jury and you're like, that's true,
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: that's true, that's true, maybe he is making everything up.
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: So that was a real concern of mine that the
• 43:46
  Speaker 2: jury might believe that, because a reasonable doubt is a
• 43:49
  Speaker 2: hell of a space you can drive a truck through.
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: Like what's reasonable doubt? It could be so many things,
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: and he was raising a lot of reasonable doubt. But
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: the thing that I believe sunk Mary Anne Smith in
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: court was she couldn't find a single solitary person, not
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: a family member, not a friend, not a coworker, no
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: one to get up on that stand and testify on
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: her behalf to say good things about her not one,
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: and if you're the jury, you got to be asking yourself.
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: No one wanted to put their reputation on the line
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: to say she's no one, So evidence be damned. In
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: my mind, looking back at how it all went down,
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: it was a three day trial. I think that did
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: it because at least in other instances, when you see
• 44:32
  Speaker 2: the criminal their mother, Oh my daughter's a good their father,
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: their friend, their their husband, their boyfriend, whatever, she's a
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: really good person, she tries to There was none of
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: that for her. So that's very telling, you know. And
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: it wasn't for lack of trying. She tried. You know,
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: people would call me like, hey, they asked me if
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: I could testify Maryanne's behalf today because they don't know
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: that this person's been in touch with me and know
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: she's a con. You know. But yeah, that did her in.
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: So what happened was my case exploded. I did a podcast,
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: Queen of the Con. I was in the Hollywood Reporter,
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: I was in the New York Times, Like my story
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: kind of went viral, and all of a sudden, hundreds
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: and hundreds of victims of other cons start reaching out
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: to me for help, asking, you know, you've inspired me.
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: I want to go after my con artists. Now what
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: do I do? Can you help me? What do I do?
• 45:19
  Speaker 2: Can you help me? What do I do? Can you
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: help me? So not knowing any better and feeling like
• 45:24
  Speaker 2: I want to put to use all this stuff I've
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: learned in dealing with the system. It took me two
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: years to get that conviction. Two years, and it was
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: an obsession. A few months in. I had to hide
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: it from my husband because he would get mad when
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: he saw me online like working the case, you know,
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: and I had to hide it from my friend. Everyone
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: thought I was crazy, and everyone told me, you need
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: to let this go, you need to let us go.
• 45:43
  Speaker 2: And I pretended to let it go. I had to
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: pretend to let it go to have peace in my home.
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: But I didn't. I never let it go. I was obsessed,
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: and that's what it takes. And I was obsessed. So
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: my story exploded. People start calling me for help, and
• 45:59
  Speaker 2: I start helping. You know, some people play golf on
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: the weekends. I started hunting con artists and I start
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: looking into these cases, and after like I don't know,
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: a few dozen, it begins to dawn on me, like
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: wait a minute, wait, a minute. All of these techniques
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: in all these disparate cases that all these disparate con
• 46:21
  Speaker 2: men and con women are using on their victims are
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: identical to what mine did to me. Like they're identical.
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: So I just started making notes. Oh, offer to help,
• 46:31
  Speaker 2: Oh too kind, too quick. Oh drama, drama. Oh they
• 46:34
  Speaker 2: isolated them. Oh they pretended they were better than them.
• 46:36
  Speaker 2: Oh they use technology a lot. Oh they had a
• 46:38
  Speaker 2: good day job. A lot of con artists have a
• 46:40
  Speaker 2: good day job. And that's to make you think, oh,
• 46:43
  Speaker 2: there's no way this is a scam. They have a
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: good day job, Like there must be real. There's one
• 46:47
  Speaker 2: case I write about the book, The con artists worked
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: in the mayor's office.
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: That was wild.
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: How could she be a con arnist? She's in the
• 46:54
  Speaker 2: mayor's office. That case is still ongoing. I've spent like
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: close to ten grand of my own money on that
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: case so far. I'm not letting that woman get away
• 47:03
  Speaker 2: if it's the last thing I do. But anyway, I
• 47:05
  Speaker 2: wrote an article for the huff Post. I wrote something
• 47:08
  Speaker 2: that eventually became an article for the huff Post. You know,
• 47:11
  Speaker 2: at that point, I only had eight of the red flags,
• 47:13
  Speaker 2: and I got a call from a big time literary agent,
• 47:18
  Speaker 2: Jenna land Free with folio and she's like, hey, I
• 47:23
  Speaker 2: loved your article. I think it would make a great book.
• 47:26
  Speaker 2: She's like, I bet you I could sell a book
• 47:28
  Speaker 2: like this if I sell it, can you write it?
• 47:30
  Speaker 2: So I'm like sure, not thinking she could sell it,
• 47:34
  Speaker 2: but then she sold them like she's so good, you know,
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: she's amazing.
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: And one thing I want to touch on that's one
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: of your red flags is drama. Drama drama, which is
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: such a catchy way of putting it, but it's something
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: you know, Hannah, and I see this all the time
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: where the con artist creates this something is always wrong,
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: something is always happening, and the person that they're conning.
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: The purpose of this is you're just preoccupying, so they
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: don't know up from down. They can't assess whether or
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: not you're even telling the truth because they're too busy
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: trying to save you from some chaotic situation exactly.
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: And what they also do, and it's so easy to do,
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: but regular people never think of doing this. This con
• 48:15
  Speaker 2: artist who's now your new friend. If they find out
• 48:19
  Speaker 2: you had a bad breakup, you know, they'll say, hey,
• 48:22
  Speaker 2: I saw your boyfriend parked upside of your place last night,
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: like for two hours. Like I was going to call you,
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: but I didn't want to frighten you. But yeah, what's
• 48:28
  Speaker 2: going on? So that's not true, but you have no
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: way of knowing that's not true. So now you're scared
• 48:34
  Speaker 2: of the boyfriend. And again, con artists don't outsmart you,
• 48:38
  Speaker 2: they outfeel you. And fear is a powerful feeling. And
• 48:42
  Speaker 2: if you're busy being scared, you're not thinking with your intellect.
• 48:45
  Speaker 2: You know you're going to get scammed. This is how
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: they manipulate you. Yeah, they drama, drama, and the way
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: I read it when I recorded the audiobook is red
• 48:51
  Speaker 2: Flag number three drama, drama, drama, perfect, get the audiobooks. Yeah,
• 49:00
  Speaker 2: it's so powerful, and I'm glad you both have experienced
• 49:03
  Speaker 2: talking to victims and you concur it's a powerful, powerful
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: trap that kind of gets you off kilter and you
• 49:09
  Speaker 2: don't know up from down, go in or come in,
• 49:11
  Speaker 2: and you're that much more likely to believe the next thing.
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, totally.
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So that's why I wrote the book. It was
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: an article. Now it's a book, and I am very
• 49:22
  Speaker 2: proud of it. I've read it eight million times because
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: God the process of editing, and after the publisher has
• 49:29
  Speaker 2: their way with it, they want me to read in
• 49:30
  Speaker 2: the final time. It takes a village, you know, because
• 49:32
  Speaker 2: we're still catching typos up until prints. But I'm very
• 49:35
  Speaker 2: proud of it. I think. Yes, the last two chapters
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: I explain what to do if you've been conned, but
• 49:41
  Speaker 2: the whole book is how to not get caught. These
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: are the red flags, and when I point them out,
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: they're easy to spot, you know, the TMI technique. Oh,
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: red flag number twelve, Stories from far Away Places. This
• 49:55
  Speaker 2: is what my con artist was waving immediately. You know.
• 49:58
  Speaker 2: Con artists like to snow you with story raised from
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: far away places because they're hard to validate. They're hard
• 50:04
  Speaker 2: to prove false. Like I was on the Olympic team
• 50:06
  Speaker 2: in nineteen eighty eight when I was a kid in France.
• 50:09
  Speaker 2: I was like a junior on the on the Olympic
• 50:10
  Speaker 2: team in France. Can you prove that's fake? No? They
• 50:15
  Speaker 2: use human nature against us, human nature being what it is.
• 50:17
  Speaker 2: If we can't prove something is false, we just accept
• 50:20
  Speaker 2: it as true. And that's how they live and breathe
• 50:23
  Speaker 2: life into their stories. Stories from far away places, so
• 50:27
  Speaker 2: you know, if they're offering to help you, they're too kind,
• 50:29
  Speaker 2: too quick. There's a lot of drama. They're isolating you
• 50:32
  Speaker 2: from people. They're telling you, oh, this person said this
• 50:34
  Speaker 2: about you, and don't talk to them. They're getting you
• 50:36
  Speaker 2: not to talk to people. That's a huge red flag.
• 50:38
  Speaker 2: You know, they're using digital screens technology to sell their stories.
• 50:42
  Speaker 2: You know, there's an element of scarcity in a lot
• 50:44
  Speaker 2: of these cons You got to act quick. I need
• 50:46
  Speaker 2: it by this date. The IPO is going public on Friday,
• 50:49
  Speaker 2: so if you want in, I need that twenty thousand
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: by Friday. Like scarcity. You know, they're all very effective tools,
• 50:55
  Speaker 2: but once I point them out, God are they easy
• 50:58
  Speaker 2: to spot. And I enjoy spotting them. In every case.
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: Your book it's like if someone has someone in their
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: life that they feel like is being conned and they're
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: not seeing it, your book is a really safe space
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: for that person to come to their own conclusion. Yes,
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: and I also really appreciate how digestible it is. You know,
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: so many books that analyze human behavior through anyone lens
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: can be you know, maybe a little more complicated or
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: disorder to get through. But yours, I think by way
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: of great storytelling also makes it a really rivoting read
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: along with being super informative, and I was so happy
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: to have read it.
• 51:41
  Speaker 2: That means so much to me. Thank you so much.
• 51:43
  Speaker 2: You know. The more I go along on this journey,
• 51:46
  Speaker 2: I feel like I was in the perfect position to
• 51:49
  Speaker 2: do this work. Why. I mean, when I got conned,
• 51:51
  Speaker 2: it felt like the end of the world. I was
• 51:54
  Speaker 2: so angry at everything and everyone and God. I was
• 51:56
  Speaker 2: angry at God. I would ask, how could you let
• 51:59
  Speaker 2: this have to me? I was just trying to help her,
• 52:03
  Speaker 2: you know, like I felt forsaken. And I'm not religious
• 52:07
  Speaker 2: like everyone in LA. I'm spiritual, but I believe in God,
• 52:10
  Speaker 2: and I felt forsaken. But as time has passed and
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: what I've been able to do with it, I realized
• 52:17
  Speaker 2: what a tremendous blessing it's been. I was the chosen one.
• 52:22
  Speaker 2: I was neo. I was meant to stop her. No
• 52:25
  Speaker 2: one had stopped her until I came along. No one
• 52:28
  Speaker 2: everyone limps away quietly into the night, no one says anything,
• 52:31
  Speaker 2: no one does anything. I'm the guy to do it.
• 52:34
  Speaker 2: In the same way, I was the guy to help
• 52:35
  Speaker 2: this woman get her inheritance. I'm the guy to stop her,
• 52:39
  Speaker 2: and not only stop her, expose her and avoid other
• 52:42
  Speaker 2: people from getting cont One of the most thrilling days
• 52:45
  Speaker 2: of my life still to this day. One of the
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: first victims I found, who found me before the conviction,
• 52:52
  Speaker 2: before she was charged. She got evicted because she had
• 52:56
  Speaker 2: convinced our landlord she had cancer and couldn't pay rent
• 52:59
  Speaker 2: and was in the high spittle getting surgery and treatments,
• 53:01
  Speaker 2: and she had skated by not paying rent for six months.
• 53:05
  Speaker 2: And once I exposed her, I went to the landlord said, hey,
• 53:09
  Speaker 2: this woman scammed me. And she's like, oh, but she
• 53:12
  Speaker 2: has cancer. I'm like, no, she doesn't. She don't got
• 53:14
  Speaker 2: no cancer. No, that's cod. She started evicting her. So
• 53:19
  Speaker 2: at this point Mayor met someone on Tinder, an engineer
• 53:23
  Speaker 2: in Newport Beach, a guy named Bob. You know, wealthy
• 53:26
  Speaker 2: guy owns two homes. And again, once I point this out,
• 53:30
  Speaker 2: you see how similar the paths are. The first date,
• 53:33
  Speaker 2: he confides in her that he's not happy with his
• 53:35
  Speaker 2: child custody arrangement with his kids and his ex wife
• 53:38
  Speaker 2: and he wishes he had a better arrangement of the custody.
• 53:41
  Speaker 2: And she says, well, you know, this is meant to
• 53:44
  Speaker 2: be because I happened to be a child custody investigator
• 53:47
  Speaker 2: for the courts. Oh my god, and I can help you.
• 53:53
  Speaker 2: Red Flag number one. They offer to help. And think
• 53:56
  Speaker 2: of Bob. Those two kids, it was like a seven
• 53:59
  Speaker 2: and nine year old boy and a girl. They mean
• 54:02
  Speaker 2: the world to him. So now his intellect is taking
• 54:06
  Speaker 2: a back seat. His emotion has taken over, and he
• 54:09
  Speaker 2: invites this con artist into his life. She quickly moves
• 54:12
  Speaker 2: into his home, she starts spending time with his kids,
• 54:16
  Speaker 2: and she creates this crazy story. She creates all these
• 54:19
  Speaker 2: characters similar to me, but it was a private investigator.
• 54:22
  Speaker 2: It was a local district attorney. She's impersonating all these
• 54:24
  Speaker 2: people over text and email and showing Bob, your wife,
• 54:28
  Speaker 2: she says, is running adsm sex club out of her
• 54:30
  Speaker 2: home while the kids are sleeping. Here's evidence, we've tapped
• 54:34
  Speaker 2: her phones. Like this is going to help your custody arrangement.
• 54:37
  Speaker 2: And Bob is terrified but thrilled because now he's going
• 54:40
  Speaker 2: to get full custody of his kids, or so he thinks. Well,
• 54:43
  Speaker 2: obviously none of these characters were real. There was no
• 54:47
  Speaker 2: private investigator, there was no disattorney. Bob's ex wife is
• 54:50
  Speaker 2: not running adsam sex club out of her home. What
• 54:53
  Speaker 2: the kids are sleeping, that's all drama, drama, drama to
• 54:57
  Speaker 2: get Bob to do what she wants. So the scam
• 54:59
  Speaker 2: from Bob was it was a tweak on the inheritance
• 55:02
  Speaker 2: scam for me. She loves her family. In this scam,
• 55:05
  Speaker 2: she's getting twenty five million dollars in an inheritance. It's
• 55:07
  Speaker 2: coming any day. So she's going to buy a house
• 55:10
  Speaker 2: with twelve million. So she gets into Bob's land rover.
• 55:13
  Speaker 2: You know, he's a big successful guy, and they get
• 55:16
  Speaker 2: a real turn and they start looking at these expensive
• 55:19
  Speaker 2: homes at Newport Beach and she's going to buy one.
• 55:22
  Speaker 2: She picks the one she's gonna buy, and she tells Bob,
• 55:25
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna put your name on it with me, like
• 55:27
  Speaker 2: I want to own this with you, And Bob's like, no,
• 55:29
  Speaker 2: I can't let you do that up. If our relationship
• 55:31
  Speaker 2: goes south, I'll own half your home. That's not right
• 55:34
  Speaker 2: because Bob's a good guy. So she's like, well, if
• 55:36
  Speaker 2: you want to make it right, just add my name
• 55:39
  Speaker 2: to the titles of your two homes and it will
• 55:41
  Speaker 2: be equal. So she draws up paperwork to add his name.
• 55:46
  Speaker 2: Bob brings his kids to pick out their bedrooms. She
• 55:51
  Speaker 2: put in a written offer on the house, like there
• 55:55
  Speaker 2: is no money, but she's gotten everyone to believe it
• 55:58
  Speaker 2: this far because she needs to get her name added
• 56:01
  Speaker 2: to his home. So right around the time this is
• 56:04
  Speaker 2: all happening, Bob's ex wife suddenly gets curious, who the
• 56:09
  Speaker 2: hell is this woman, Mayor Smith spending all this time
• 56:14
  Speaker 2: around my kids. I want to know about her? So
• 56:17
  Speaker 2: what does she do? She does what we all do,
• 56:19
  Speaker 2: and we want to know something. She googles. She googles
• 56:22
  Speaker 2: Mayor Smith and up pops my blog and he is shot.
• 56:30
  Speaker 2: She prints out the blog. Mayor is like living in
• 56:32
  Speaker 2: his house. At this point, she calls Bob and she's like, hey,
• 56:37
  Speaker 2: I need to see you right away. Oh okay, me
• 56:39
  Speaker 2: and Mayor will come over. No, no, no, let's meet
• 56:42
  Speaker 2: in the park. Don't bring Mayor. I need you alone. Okay, okay.
• 56:45
  Speaker 2: So they meet in the park. The ex wife gives
• 56:47
  Speaker 2: Bob the blog and says, this is the woman who's
• 56:50
  Speaker 2: around our kids. She's a con artist. Bob's like, there's no, no,
• 56:53
  Speaker 2: this can't this can't be. So Bob takes the printed
• 56:57
  Speaker 2: out blog back home. He comes to the door and
• 57:01
  Speaker 2: Bob hands it to her and says, what's this And
• 57:05
  Speaker 2: in true con artist fashion, they know, let the gigs up.
• 57:10
  Speaker 2: They know. She didn't say a word. She just walked
• 57:13
  Speaker 2: right past him, ran over to her car and drove away.
• 57:16
  Speaker 2: She left her shit there. She was scared.
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: It's utterly terrible, but like, oh my god, what a story.
• 57:24
  Speaker 2: Wow. So the phone call I got from Bob the
• 57:26
  Speaker 2: first time he called, he was crying like, thank you,
• 57:30
  Speaker 2: you saved me, You saved me, thank.
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: You, because he hadn't put her name on the houses yet.
• 57:36
  Speaker 2: No, but the paperwork was drawn up, and he says
• 57:39
  Speaker 2: he was never going to do it. But I'm like,
• 57:41
  Speaker 2: but your kids picked out their bedrooms, dude, you brought
• 57:44
  Speaker 2: your freaking kids. So again it's a little of oh
• 57:47
  Speaker 2: I knew, No, you didn't. Your kids picked out there,
• 57:50
  Speaker 2: Like that's crazy.
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: It can be so hard to distant yourself from like believing.
• 57:56
  Speaker 2: You know, oh I know. But the love I have
• 57:58
  Speaker 2: for Bob because he wound up testifying in my case,
• 58:03
  Speaker 2: he wound up testifying and he helped put her in jail,
• 58:06
  Speaker 2: and he supported like he was so still to this day.
• 58:09
  Speaker 2: He sent me the screen grab he pre ordered the book.
• 58:11
  Speaker 2: He's so excited. He's such a great, amazing guy, and
• 58:15
  Speaker 2: it just fills me with a sense of purpose, Like
• 58:18
  Speaker 2: I feel like this is my mission, you know, in
• 58:21
  Speaker 2: the same way my blog saved him, I want to
• 58:24
  Speaker 2: save everyone. I want to point out Mayor Smith is
• 58:27
  Speaker 2: not an anomaly. There are versions of her everywhere. The
• 58:31
  Speaker 2: problem is there aren't versions of me everywhere. The vast
• 58:35
  Speaker 2: majority of victims don't say anything. And I've wrestled with
• 58:39
  Speaker 2: this question because I get asked it all the time,
• 58:42
  Speaker 2: but why are you different? At first, I thought it
• 58:45
  Speaker 2: has something to do with me being gay, coming out
• 58:47
  Speaker 2: at thirty and having to accept that people aren't going
• 58:50
  Speaker 2: to be happy, like I can't care what people think. Yes,
• 58:53
  Speaker 2: that's part of it. That's part of my not caring
• 58:55
  Speaker 2: what people think. That's part of that where that comes from.
• 58:58
  Speaker 2: But I wish this in the book, but it's not.
• 59:01
  Speaker 2: But this is the truth that I figured out recently,
• 59:03
  Speaker 2: So you know. I have a degree in broadcast journalism.
• 59:06
  Speaker 2: I was a TV reporter for ten years. My first
• 59:09
  Speaker 2: on air job was in San Antonio. I was hired
• 59:12
  Speaker 2: at KVB in San Antonio KBBTV, and my job was
• 59:17
  Speaker 2: to do something fun. I was a feature reporter, so
• 59:20
  Speaker 2: like fun interesting stories. So my first night on the air,
• 59:23
  Speaker 2: I've never been on the air. I'm like twenty four
• 59:25
  Speaker 2: to twenty five years old. I'm a kid. My first
• 59:27
  Speaker 2: on air job, I go out and shoot this funny
• 59:30
  Speaker 2: story interview these people I crafted. I edited into a
• 59:33
  Speaker 2: two minute piece. We call it a package of the
• 59:35
  Speaker 2: news business. And then I fronted in the studio and
• 59:39
  Speaker 2: the anchors are laughing and clapping, and I walked back
• 59:42
  Speaker 2: into the newsroom and all the producers and the guy
• 59:45
  Speaker 2: who hired me, Alan Little God Rest his soul, and
• 59:48
  Speaker 2: my executive producer, Greg Kelkin, passed away to God Rest
• 59:50
  Speaker 2: of Soul, applauding, I'm like king in the world. I'm like, yes,
• 59:55
  Speaker 2: this is what I'm like. I'm so good, like I
• 59:57
  Speaker 2: feel like God, I'm like, I've never had a highlight that.
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 2: And then a minute later, I get over to my
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 2: desk and I sit down and I get my first
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 2: viewer voicemail. It has rung in my head ever since
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 2: I got it. That voicemail. This angry woman, Texas woman,
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 2: you ball headed, mother fucking faggot. You so fucking ugly?
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 2: How the hell you get on TV? You ball headed,
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 2: mother fucking faggot.
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 2: I was devastated. I was devastated, and I had this
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 2: crisis of faith, like I can't do this job? What
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 2: am I doing here? I went to bed that night,
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 2: coiled in the fetal position, crying like I gotta quit.
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 2: I can't do I can't do this job. So over
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 2: the ensuing weeks, I'm like what am I? Am I
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 2: this brilliant new reporter who's funny and gets a standing
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 2: ovation in the news room? Or am I this guy
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 2: too ugly to be on TV? And like what am I? So?
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 2: What a blessing that event in my life was because
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 2: I quickly figured out the only way I'm going to
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 2: be able to function. I can't listen to anyone. I
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 2: can't seek anyone's opinion. You'll ask one question and get
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 2: ten answers. I can't. And I'm a kid, I'm twenty,
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 2: I'm in my early twenties learning this, Thank God. And
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 2: as I went on in television and I got another
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 2: job at the CBS station Houston, I had that mentality
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 2: like I don't care what you think. Not only do
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 2: I not care what you think. It's not even occurring
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 2: to me to care, because people ask me, weren't you
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 2: scared to go to police? Like, weren't you worried what
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 2: they would think? No, it literally never occurred to me.
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 2: What are they going to think? I don't care? Never
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 2: occurred to me. And the reason that is is because
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 2: of these, you know, foundational experiences I had as a kid,
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 2: Like that's how I had to be. So that's what
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 2: makes me intrinsically different than most other victims. They were
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 2: never on the air in San Antonio to get those
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 2: conflicting what are you the second coming of Christ? Or
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 2: you too damn ugly and stupid? Like what are you?
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 2: You know? God? So that was such a blessing. And
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 2: again I just believe I'm in the perfect place, the
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 2: perfect time, doing the perfect thing. I'm meant to be here.
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 2: I'm meant to share what I've learned. And I still
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 2: can't believe how has there not been a book about
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 2: these red flags before I got to be the guy
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 2: to write it. Yeah, I guess so, because I've read
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 2: every con artist book and they're all so victim pejorative,
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 2: like some of them outright make fun of victims, and
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 2: I'm like, how can you be so stupid? Like, No,
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 2: there's a system that they use and this is what
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 2: it looks and sounds like, it feels like and until
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 2: it's happening to you and they got into your emotion,
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 2: like with Bob, I can help you get a better
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 2: custody arrangement. Who doesn't want that? Like they offer to
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 2: help and you love them, They get you to love them.
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 2: Love is the most powerful force there is in the universe.
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 2: People kill for love, people die for love, and a
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 2: con artist's job is to get you to love them
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 2: or love the thing they're creating, because once you're making
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 2: decisions on that love, you're not the straight you're going
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 2: to get con.
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's so great. It's such a great resource because
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: I think a lot of people are afraid to go
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: to the police or just maybe wouldn't even know where
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: to start, and the idea of trying to figure that
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: out can feel overwhelming. And so who you are and
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: your life experiences like all aligned to where you were
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: able to really take this on and so grateful that
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: you were able to get justice in your case and
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: then as well like support other people and you know,
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: it's interesting thinking about you know, you mentioned the same
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: thing that sort of got you conned in some ways,
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: is this desire to help her, this Irish heiress is
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: also the same thing that your desire to help other people,
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: but not in like a scammy way. And it makes
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: me think about how the thing that makes people susceptible
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: to being conned is their humanity in so many ways,
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: it's just like human nature, it's psychology. It's the good
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: parts of people too, right, the things that like they
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: don't actually want to erase about themselves. What are they
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: supposed to do? Never love someone again, never trust someone again?
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: Like what kind of life is that? But I like
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: the clarity of how you've pointed out these red flags
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: and you point out that, you know, maybe just one
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: of them might not be a red flag on its own.
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: But really think critically about if someone that your meeting
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: has like three or four or five, and you.
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 2: Know, yeah, if they're five, it's a scam. Is there five?
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 2: If you've identified five of these red flags, yeah, you're
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 2: gonna find You're gonna find a bunch more walk away,
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 2: get away, ruck away. Yeah.
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: So it's nice that there's these like tools that are
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: clear and that the answer is not just don't ever
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: care about anyone again?
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 2: You know, yeah, because people ask me the all the time. Well,
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 2: it's ruined your trusting people. I'm like it has, but
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 2: I'm glack. I now I pretend to trust everyone, but
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 2: secretly I'm verifying. You know. Yeah, I'm still a nice person.
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 2: I still make friends, but I'm suspicious. The other night,
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 2: I was dragged this cocktail party in the valley, which
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 2: in La, it's like, if you live in La, you
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 2: gotta go to the valleys over the hill. It's a trek.
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 2: So I'm at this cocktail party and this new couple
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 2: comes in. They're friends of a friend who came and
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 2: it's a very good looking couple, men and woman. They
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 2: look like an OnlyFans couple. And you know, they introduced
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 2: themselves to us briefly, and they're retired. They're from Arizona.
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 2: They came here to retire in La. And that was weird.
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 2: But okay, you're retiring in LA. But then because of
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 2: that weirdness and they were hot, I paid attention. I
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 2: tried to eavesdrop. That's just me. No one else did
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 2: I did. This is a weird story that you're retiring.
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 2: You guys are in you like early thirties or late thirties,
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 2: Like retiring, it's possible. Sure. So then as I'm eavesdropping,
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 2: I hear them telling three other origin stories some people.
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 2: They tell he works in security at the mall and
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 2: she has as she does hair and makeup, Like, well,
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 2: wait a minute, that's not what they told me. So
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 2: now I'm obsessed with these people because I'm not very
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 2: good at cocktail parties. I only like people I love,
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 2: like don't I don't want to meet you people. So
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 2: now I have something to do. I start like getting
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 2: a drink and hanging around and listening to Yeah. But
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 2: I didn't have the bandwidth to take on that case.
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 2: But I told the person who through the party, I'm like, listen,
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 2: these people, how do you know them? Oh, they're friends
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 2: and blah blah. Well something's up, Like why would they
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 2: tell three different origin stories? Only a scammer does that.
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 2: They're hiding something, they're lying about themselves, and they're so
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 2: good looking. A lot of scammers are good looking because
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 2: they learn to use it and work it. So I
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 2: don't know what the scam is, but stay away from
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 2: these people. And I left, but I guarantee you there
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 2: was some kind of con going on.
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: I also think, like in your life, when you meet
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: people and you develop friendships, non con artist people quote
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: like normal people, they I think are usually pretty comfortable
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: with like trust is earned and not over asking and
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: like you said, over sharing. I mean, if you meet
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: someone and they immediately like need something from you or
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: or want to help the bist problem in your life,
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: as you've said, immediately with you know yeah TMI, the.
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 2: Help is fake, you know mayor with Bob. She was
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 2: not a child custody investigator with the courts. But it's
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 2: easy to lie like, hey, I'm going through you know,
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 2: I just my car was impounded. Hey I know someone
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 2: at the impound lot. Oh, but you don't need to
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 2: know someone. You just need to extend the offer and
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 2: now they like you. Yeah, they can get in there.
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 2: You know. The help is a lie, but it's powerful.
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 2: It makes you like them immediately. What they're trying to
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 2: do is get you like them immediately. And who doesn't
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 2: like a helper? We all do. Well.
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: If I meet anyone that I have questions about, Jonathan,
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 1: I will make sure to invite both you and them
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: to an.
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 2: Event and then I'll let you leaves drop.
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and we'd also like to do some follow ups
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: on this couple if you find out anything else serious.
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 2: I regret. I regret. I was just so you know,
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 2: writing this book. It took me three years, and I
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 2: would write in the morning. I wake up at four
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 2: am every day, so from five am to ten am,
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 2: I would just write because that's when I'm the quickest, freshest,
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 2: most creative, and then I go out with my other job.
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 2: I just didn't have the bandwidth to like look into
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 2: anything else because I got all these but I can
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 2: immediately if someone is telling you different origins and you
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 2: overhear them, and there's such a good looking couple, and
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 2: you know, my story made no sense. They're retired, like
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 2: you're way too young to retire. But my friends accepted
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 2: that I'm not a regular person anymore. I'm suspicious all
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 2: the time, and I want to be that way. Yeah,
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 2: because the people I was with are like, yeah, so
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 2: they retired like this is la Like they could have
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 2: a lot of money, they could have a trust fund,
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 2: like you don't know, yeah, like yeah, or they could
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 2: be scammers, work in the room. You know. Olkham's Razor.
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's also so strange to like come in hot
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: with like this portrayal of wealth.
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's the title of my next booking.
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: In Hot, Coming in Hot. Well, this has just been
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 1: so delightful. Thank you so much for joining us, Jonathan. Yeah, really,
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: thank you.
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 2: And you know, I've been doing a lot of interviews lately,
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 2: but this has been the most fun. You you too
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 2: are great. Thank you and you you really I'm not
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 2: blowing smoke. You've asked the most relevant and insightful questions
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 2: and I appreciate that.
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: Oh, thank so, thank you. That's great.
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 2: You get it. This is your world. You deal with
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 2: a lot of scams, so thank you. I think we're
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 2: helping people.
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: So yeah, I mean we're going to be recommending this
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 1: book to a lot of people. I already have people
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 1: in my mind where I'm like, they should read this book.
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: Could really help them in their lives.
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because so many people who are getting canned don't
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 2: know it, and it's hard for others to point it
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 2: out because they get defensive, especially if it's a relationship. Yeah,
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 2: but if you give them the book, let it, if
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 2: they reached the conclusion on their own, it's that much
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 2: more powerful. Oh totally, like they're raving all these flags
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 2: and I love that.
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 1: Well, awesome, it's been a delight. Thank you so much.
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: Really appreciate taking the time. We'll speak with you soon.
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 2: Definitely, thank you, guys, Petia.
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: I think one of my favorite things that's ever been
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: said on a Knife podcast thus far is something Jonathan
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: said in this interview, and he said, some people golf
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 1: on the weekends. I hunt con artists. I love that
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 1: it's aspirational. He's a hero. I loved when he said
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 1: I'm a vegetarian and then talked about the murder fantasies.
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 1: I mean that was just such a wild thing to
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: listen to someone talk about, but like so authentic to
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: what he was feeling, so authentic, and I think a
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 1: lot of people would be afraid to talk about that.
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 1: When he said that he understood what it was like
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 1: to have the urge to murder someone, I was like, whoa.
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 1: He said, I appreciate your honesty. Yeah, I mean I do.
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: That was such a great conversation and just such a
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: perfect example of how you never think it's going to
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 1: be you. Yeah, it's like you're moving through life, you
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: have no choice, but to live your life kind of
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 1: trusting people. Yeah, that's how you build relationships. And then
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 1: he finds himself at the center of this incredible scheme
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 1: and proceeds to completely unravel it. I know, gosh, I
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: really love his book. I appreciate it so much. It's
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 1: not just like a platitude when we say anyone can
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 1: be conned, like you really believe that. I do, And
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: I don't know if I always believe that. I think that.
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 1: You know, when I started interviewing people that had been
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 1: victims of cons it really like changed my understanding of
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 1: who is scammed and how like completely. I think that
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 1: there's still this prevalent idea in society that people that
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 1: are victims of scams are somehow less intelligent. It just
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 1: is not It's one hundred percent not true. It could
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: not be further from the truth. And one of the
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 1: things that I think this book does so well, and
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 1: Jonathan does so well, is that he lays out these
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 1: red flags that are so clear and concise, which is
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 1: so opposite oftentimes how someone feels when they're being conned.
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 1: It's like they can feel very murky because so much
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 1: of these scams that people pull off are these like
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 1: calculated psychological manipulations over time that are really hard to
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 1: kind of like pin down in your life, especially when
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 1: you're reeling from being conned. And so really it's like
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 1: who can be cond humans? Like the people that are
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 1: susceptible to being conned are people that are human? Yeah, everyone?
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 1: I mean I think that you meet your neighbor because
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 1: you want to get access to an amenity you pay
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 1: for what you're building. That is as innocuous as any
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 1: other way of meeting anyone. And yet she set her
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 1: sights on him, Yeah, and stole so much and like
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: four years later invested four years.
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 1: That's the other piece of this. It's like there's always
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 1: that analogy, like the boiling frog or something. Oh yeah,
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 1: the fog and the slowly boiling pot, right, that is
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 1: a telltale sign now that we've seen. I mean, I
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 1: guess it's not even a sign because it happened so slowly,
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 1: but yeah, conardists know what they're doing. Yeah, what is
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 1: a light to talk with Jonathan? And so one thing
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 1: I don't think we talked about this in the episode,
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 1: but Jonathan has also covered Peggy Fulford. So we did
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 1: a season on Peggy Fulford for the Opportunists back in
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty two. She was the corrupt money manager who
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 1: stole money from her clients, many of whom were professional athletes,
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 1: including Dennis Rodman and Ricky Williams. And I actually interviewed
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 1: Peggy over a video call while she was in prison.
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 1: Jonathan let us know she's out of prison now. I
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 1: had not kept up with that, but Jonathan said he
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 1: referenced that video call in his coverage of Peggy on
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 1: Queen of the Con So that was sort of fun.
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 1: We discussed that before we hit record, but it was
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: such a pleasure to talk with someone who also has
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 1: spent so much time, you know, researching and investigating con artists. Yeah.
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 1: I mean, he's very enthusiastic about his work, and I
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: love that. I don't think this makes it into the
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 1: cut of the interview, but Jonathan talked about something that
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: I think is so important, which is jury duty. He
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 1: talked about how before going through this and having to
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 1: testify against Mayor Smith for all the money that she'd stolen,
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 1: how he had always just tried to get out of
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 1: jury duty, and then when he was on this side
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 1: of it where he wanted justice, how important it felt
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 1: to him, and how important it was that these jurors,
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 1: you know, take that responsibility really seriously and sort of
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 1: see it as this duty and try to find the
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 1: right outcome. And I've thought a lot about that since
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 1: he said it, because, yeah, I too have hoped to
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 1: never be called for jury duty, and when I have been,
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 1: I've been very relieved not to be chosen. And look,
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 1: there are some difficult things with jury duty, like time
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 1: away from work and whatnot. But yeah, I think next time,
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 1: if I have the opportunity to do it, I'll probably
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 1: have a different attitude. Yeah, I love that. I don't
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 1: know how I missed that, because I'm right there on board.
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 1: I actually have wanted to be called for jury duty.
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 1: It's like my dream.
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 2: I know.
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 1: That's nice. No I'm not I'm not going to be picked.
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 1: I was called last year and I was thrilled, and
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 1: I was like, how do I downplay what I do
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 1: for my job, because I feel like they're going to
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 1: be like, no, you read court documents all the time,
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 1: you're not no, no, no. But I just I think
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 1: it's cool. I think it's cool that we get to
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 1: be part of a jury. As someone who loves like
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 1: investigating cases. I would love to sit in a jury
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 1: box and be like, Okay, what's going on, what's the evidence.
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 1: But I'm totally romanticizing it because I've never done it,
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 1: and I know that it is a huge time commitment.
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 1: Often it is a public service. But I do think
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 1: that Jonathan's right, and I appreciate that he said that
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 1: because you know, if you find yourself needing a jury
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 1: for some reason, like you don't want someone falling asleep
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 1: in the jury box. You want peopleho are paying attention
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 1: and who are going to do their best right, who
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 1: see the job as important. Yeah. Yeah, I've thought a
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 1: lot about that. Jonathan's book, Anatomy of a con Artist
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 1: is out now and I highly recommend it. It was such
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 1: a great read. It was really enthralling, so much amazing
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 1: storytelling along with really digestible information about con artists, how
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 1: they operate, and how to spot the red flags before
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 1: it's too late. Yeah, it was such a well written book.
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 1: And you know, if you think that there's someone in
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 1: your life who's being scammed, it's a great holiday present
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 1: for them. We're birthday gift, you know, lean into that
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 1: passive aggressive right behavior. Might soften the blow rather than
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 1: just hey, listen, I think that you're being taken for
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 1: a ride. Yeah, that's our episode. Thanks for listening. If
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 1: you have a story for us, we would love to
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 1: hear it. Our email is The Knife at exactlyrightmedia dot com,
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 1: or you can follow us on Instagram at the Knife
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 1: Podcast or Blue Sky at the Knife Podcast. This has
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 1: been an Exactly Right production hosted and produced by me
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 1: Hannah Smith and me paysha Ety. Our producers are Tom
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 1: Bryfogel and Alexis Samarosi. This episode was mixed by Tom Bryfogel.
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 1: Our associate producer is Christina Chamberlain. Our theme music is
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 1: by Birds in the Airport, artwork by Vanessa Lilac. Executive
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 1: produced by Karen Kilgarriff, Georgia Hardstark and Danielle Kramer.